


One woman's luck

by JauntyHako



Category: Fallout (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Piper overworking herself, Piper's hat, all via dreams, implied forced drug use, spouse visiting the new girlfriend from beyond the grave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:51:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5448953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JauntyHako/pseuds/JauntyHako
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a dead woman in Piper's office and she knows Blue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One woman's luck

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I wrote two versions of "LI getting visited by the dead spouse in their dreams". The anon on the fallout kinkmeme asked for Piper/M!SS and that was surprisingly fun to write, so here you go :)

Piper had written on that article for nearly 36 hours straight, being not much farther than when she'd first begun and she started to lose her grip of reality. The words swam in front of her, lines switching places until it all dissolved into an incoherent mess with no hope of ever becoming the voice of truth she wanted it to be. She dragged her fingers through her hair, wondered absent-mindedly where her hat had gone and, after a quick survey, found the woman had it, twirling it slowly.

The woman, right. She'd been here the whole time and, so far, hadn't said a word. Piper would have kicked her out but she had an article to concentrate on and anyway, she didn't disturb her or her efforts in getting this thing about the Brotherhood out. After weeks of needling Danse finally agreed to give a statement about the Brotherhood for her newspaper and she wasn't going to let this go to waste. Especially not with the dirt Blue had dug up for her. Maxson's awkward love poems were _so_ going into that article.

“I always teased him about having a type.” the woman said out of nowhere and Piper turned around, thrown off as she already arranged herself with the fact that the woman's presence was a quiet one.

“Who?” she asked.

“Nate. He had a thing for brunettes but you and I could be sisters.”

Piper still didn't have the faintest clue what she was talking about, but at least her statement was correct. They did look similar in a way. Maybe not quite sisters but first cousins at least.

“Who are you? How do you know Blue?”

The woman smiled sadly. She stopped spinning Piper's hat on her finger and rested it on her lap instead. That way Piper got a clear view of her hands and the gold band she wore on her finger. The penny dropped.

“Nora?” she asked, disbelieving. Her first thought was that she had to get an interview with her. View from the Afterlife, an Insider's perspective of the Beyond. The press would run hot for days.

Nora gave a small nod and then got up, placing Piper's hat on her desk and rifling through an old issue of Publick Occurences. It was the one she'd done with Blue.

“I worry for him. When he came back from the war he was like a broken bird. Didn't want to talk, barely ate, nightmares every night. And that was on the good days. Other times he'd just be the soldier again, barking out orders, seeing a bomb in every trashbin. I tried to calm him down, convince him there was no danger, but he'd only say-”

“If you can see the danger, it's already too late.” Piper finished. Nora nodded.

“Yes. The Commonwealth is a war zone. The one place he feared above all else and here we are. Because I wanted a better future for us.”

Piper didn't know what to say. Similar thoughts had crossed her mind, that without the Vault and the Institute Blue wouldn't have been here. But when she had these thoughts they weren't laced with melancholy like Nora's. Her luck was Nora's misfortune.

“I'm sorry.” she said and meant it. Nora smoothed down the paper carefully.

“Don't be. It turned out alright for you.”  
“That doesn't mean-”

Nora waved her off and Piper fell silent. Her half-written article lay forgotten on her desk as she watched Nora wander about her house, picking up things, following the cracks in the wall.

“We went to high school together.” she finally said, holding a silver locket in her hand and twisting the cord between her fingers. “Never spoke a word. The war was already on. Not the one in Anchorage, but there was always war. Mexico, I think. Nate got drafted along with most others. Those days, they didn't care anymore if you were fit for war. They needed cannon fodder. A couple of girls joined up, too. When I started University, the campus was near empty. Just a handful of boys that even the army didn't want, some girls and me. Some days I was the only student attending lecture. When I got my law degree the military practically kidnapped me. They needed people desperately. They used their own lawyers up a few years into the conflict and now had to use civilians. First case I got, this soldier was accused of killing a comrade in cold blood. No motive, no reason whatsoever. Nine witnesses, including two officers, who saw him do it. No way I was gonna win this one. He was guilty by all accounts.”

“That soldier, that was Nate?”

“It was. He didn't even deny it. But I couldn't believe that sweet guy with his freckles and his big brown puppy eyes could do that to someone he called friend.” Abruptly Nora turned around to face Piper, her eyes hard and piercing. “What do _you_ think happened?”

Piper was caught off-guard. She stammered and flailed. Forcing herself to stop and think, she wondered how Nora expected her to know. It wasn't like she'd been there. Blue never told her any of this. But the woman didn't seem the unfair type. She wouldn't nail Piper down with a question she didn't at least have a chance of answering. Piper leaned back in her chair, went through everything Nate ever said about his life before the war. About the customs back then. About the things he deliberately didn't say.

“He hates drugs.” Piper said slowly, looking to Nora for confirmation. The woman didn't let on if she was on the right track, but Piper continued anyway.

“He said it brings out the worst in people. But he'd never take it. I know Blue, he doesn't even drink alcohol. No way he was under the influence.”

“Not by choice.” Nora said and there was a hint of satisfaction in her voice, as if Piper just passed a test. “Psycho was developed for the military and became standard issue for soldiers in the field, shortly after Nate dropped out. But they needed to test it on someone first, didn't they?”

Cold shivers ran down Piper's spine. Sometimes Blue would talk about the old world but he rarely had a good thing to say about it. There was a reason it blew to hell, he said. A lot of pre-war ghouls carried similar sentiments, while an equal lot was heartbroken with nostalgia, so Piper never wondered too much. She knew that for all it's colour and perceived peace, the old world was anything but. It was wistful memory romanticising a bloody past. She just didn't expect the old world to do Blue so much wrong.

“What happened to the bastards who did this?” she whispered, having already a dozen or more things in her head she needed to do. Have a talk with Hancock about using certain drugs in front of Blue was one of them.

Nora meanwhile shrugged and leaned against the desk, close enough for Piper to smell a faint trace of perfume on her.

“That was before the bombs fell. Once I found the proof I needed we settled out of court. We got money and a reservation for the Vault, they got our silence. Nate didn't like it, tried to talk me into bringing it to the public, but what was I supposed to do? I'd already fallen in love with him. I wasn't about to watch him be made the scapegoat of it all. If I'd brought this to light, they would have locked Nate away forever. We all knew nuclear war was coming and the Vaults seemed the safest option, but it was almost impossible to get in. I took the deal for Nate's sake and mine. With everything that's happened, I don't know if it was worth it anymore.”

She turned her head slightly, regarded Piper out of the corner of her eyes.

“I'm glad the only similarities we share are in looks.” she said. “You value the truth more than I did. When they took Shaun away, when that man pointed his gun at me, I asked myself if that was punishment for keeping silent. If it was, it's a good thing he has you. Maybe this time will turn out better.”

Nora pushed herself off from the desk and leaned down.

“Tell Nate I'll always love him.” she said and kissed Piper lightly on the cheek.

 

Piper startled awake. Her hand flew to her cheek, the ghost of a kiss still lingering. A surprised laugh made her look up. It was Blue, eyes bright and a smile on his face.

“Well here I am, thinking I'd kiss you good morning and almost getting punched in the nose for it.” he said. Piper followed him with her eyes as he set up to boil some water, grabbing cups and coffee beans with practiced ease. When Piper didn't say anything his hands stilled, a blush creeping up his neck.

“That wasn't wrong, was it? The good morning kiss I mean. I just thought-”

“No, it wasn't wrong.” Piper said quickly before Blue could say something to force her to kiss his anxiety away before she even brushed her teeth. She got up, stretching her legs and reaching for her hat that lay on her desk. She usually hung it up next to the door but this time she must have forgotten.

“I just had a crazy dream. What's for breakfast?”

Blue smiled at her, all sweet innocence and shyness. Piper knew then that Nora had been wrong about at least one thing. There was at least one other thing they had in common, other than their appearance. She kissed his cheek, then his lips.

“I love you.” she said and added, in the privacy of her thoughts: We both do.


End file.
